


DE Artfest: Alternate Ending

by lastrideoftheday



Category: Detroit Evolution - Fandom, Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Ending, DE ArtFest, Detroit Evolution
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-31
Updated: 2020-07-31
Packaged: 2021-03-05 22:34:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,787
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25632877
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lastrideoftheday/pseuds/lastrideoftheday
Summary: My last work for DE Artfest! A late one for the Alternate Ending prompt.Nines wakes up in the Zen Garden after being attacked by Ada, and is greeted not by Ada but by Dr Maria.This is heavily inspired by the second trailer for the film, and what I thought the plot was going to be based on it.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 13





	DE Artfest: Alternate Ending

Nines’s vision was dark. His memories were fuzzy. He tried to piece them together, tried to gather together a timeline. He was in stasis? He opened his eyes. Yes. The green outlines of his zen garden immediately filled his vision. The breeze touched the trees lightly, ruffling their leaves. The feeling of air currents tingled across his skin in a way that was impossible in the non-virtual world. For a moment, a feeling of relaxation swept across his body, the same way that it always did whenever he entered the garden. This was the place he went to feel safe. Here, he was in control of everything.

Then the memories crowded in and he knew why he was here. Ada. She’d attacked him, probed his software, and it had forced him to fight back, to shut off, to retreat into stasis. And now he couldn’t get out. He was stuck in stasis until he could repair the damage.

He wondered if it was even possible to repair the damage, and then shut the thought down. He would deal with it later.

Something was wrong. The garden was as serene as ever, the gently swaying trees ebbing and flowing on their artificially programmed cycle. But something was missing, something important.

“Gavin?” he said. And then, more urgently: “Gavin!”

“He isn’t here, Nines. But I am.”

The voice was female. It wasn’t Ada – but it was familiar. Nines whirled round.

A woman, long hair pinned back, dressed in simple but elegant, futuristic-looking clothes, was standing a short distance away from him. Nines would have guessed she was an android, but then he realised that, although her features were digitised, the skin had marks, the facial features had subtle asymmetries. This was a digitised avatar of a human. And in the next second, Nines realised who it was that this avatar was representing. He’d met her before. Many times.

“Dr Schaeffer,” he said.

“I am. To be precise, I am a digital representation of Dr Maria Schaeffer, implanted into your software so that we may communicate while you are in stasis.”

Relief washed through Nines. He began to talk, quickly, trying to condense all the information he needed to get across into a few sentences. “Maria, I was attacked and forced into stasis by an android called Ada. You may have seen this in my memory files. She’s the serial killer we’ve been investigating for the last three weeks. You have to contact the DPD – I can’t currently exit stasis mode.”

“I should hope not.”

“What?”

Dr Maria’s avatar smiled. “I should hope you can't exit stasis mode. It was my intention. Ada did a remarkable job of making you trust her – even better that I hoped. You suspected nothing.”

Nines’s blood ran cold. A new picture was coming together, and it was one that he didn’t like. He fixed his eyes on Dr Maria. “What do you mean?” he demanded.

Mock surprise registered on the avatar’s face. What did he mean? Hadn’t he worked it out yet? But he hadn’t, and it infuriated him. He poured the fury into his eyes, trying to wipe the smile off Dr Maria’s face and make him tell her what was going on, but her artificial expression remained unperturbed. “Nines,” she said, still in a tone of mocking surprise, “Ada attacked you on my orders. As I anticipated, you were brought to Cyberlife – to me. And the process has already begun. I’m fixing you, Nines.”

It was clear that her idea of fixing him was far from the good kind. But he still didn’t know what she meant. It was like she was talking in riddles in purpose, just so he would have to ask questions, and show how little he knew. He spat out the words: “What process?”

“The process of removing deviancy from your software. You should have never been more than just a machine. And I’m rectifying that.”

Gavin walked with Tina through Cyberlife’s corridors, the two of them not saying a word. He felt defeated. Ada, the alley, Nines falling unconscious in his arms – the scenes kept replaying in his head like some kind of broken record. And they’d brought him to Cyberlife only to be turned away by the scientist repairing him, and told they would be informed when there was any progress. What sort of a doctor didn’t allow their patient’s friends to visit him? He walked, on autopilot, his feet putting themselves in front of each other because he didn’t know what else he could do.

“Hey.”

Gavin looked to his left. It was Tina who had spoken. She was putting on her best look of reassurance, her smile failing to hide the anxiety in her eyes. She was as worried as him, but doing her best to hide it.

“He’ll be fine,” she said gently. “Dr Schaeffer said she was the lead designer for Nines’s model line. If anyone can bring him back, it’s her.”

Gavin stopped walking, and Tina stopped too. He wanted to believe her. If only he could make himself believe those words, then he would be able to walk out of here without a care and wait for Cyberlife to call and tell them when Nines woke up. If only he could turn off his anxiety.

The Cyberlife corridor was brightly lit and bright white. It hurt his eyes. It wasn’t hospital green, thank god. Whatever the psychology was supposed to be behind painting all hospitals a weird sterile pale green, it didn’t work. It just made them look like a hospital. The Cyberlife building looked modern, the walls a sleek white. But it was too white, unnaturally so.

“She knew everything to say,” he said.

Tina looked at him.

He stared ahead, not feeling like making eye contact. “She calculated every step and we fell for it.”

Tina immediately swooped in with a reassuring tone. “Nines didn’t realise either. She wasn’t a suspect – you couldn’t have known.” Her words were logical, factual – Tina wasn’t someone to offer vague emotional support without grounding. Her arguments would always be reasonable, her reassurance based on facts. “But now you do, and you can stop her.”

The thought of stopping Ada now seemed so far-fetched, so impossible, that he couldn’t even think where to begin. All he could think of was Nines in that alley. The adrenaline had kicked in, Gavin could barely remember what happened after he called the ambulance – but his brain was filling in the gaps, showing him the picture over and over of Nines, eyes closed, body still. Stop her? Stop Ada? What did that even mean at this point? Conscious of how defeated he sounded as he said it, he said, “Not without Nines.” He swallowed. “The last thing I said to him was “I don’t need you.””

“You’ve said way worse to him before and it’s never kept you guys apart.”

“It was different this time, T. He keeps seeing more of me… he wants to get closer and it doesn’t make any sense.”

He was surprised to see Tina’s expression break into a smile at that. “Sure it does,” she said, with no hesitation. “It’s simple. He needs you.”

“Yeah, right.”

“Gavin. I’ve seen the way he looks at you when you’re not watching. You’re all he ever talks about. You’re his world.” She smiled, adopting a lighter tone. “Doesn’t make much sense to me either but hey, it’s the truth.”

It didn’t make any sense. It shouldn’t make sense, but somehow, he wasn’t disbelieving her. Not exactly believing her, but not completely ignoring her words, either. But it didn’t matter, not right now. Not if they couldn’t bring him back at all. “We don’t know anything about the state Ada left him in. Dr Schaeffer barely told us anything. What if he comes back and he’s not the same?” He hesitated, but he had to say it. “What if they have to reset him?”

“You’ll figure it out.” Tina’s tone was gentle but confident. “You always do.”

He didn’t reply. Tina glanced around her, probably remembering that they were still in the middle of a corridor. “Let’s go,” she said. Now that he was no longer lost in his thoughts, the bright lights of Cyberlife’s interior were beginning to get too much for him again. He followed Tina, anxious to be out of the oppressive bright whiteness of the corridor.

“You can’t think that.” Nines was struggling to process what he’d just been told. He knew Dr Schaeffer… didn’t he? “Maria, I’ve met you. You helped me. You can’t hate deviants, you’ve helped me before! You’ve been the one to repair me countless times!” He was aware of how desperate he sounded. He couldn’t help it. Dr Maria had been the one Cyberlife employee he trusted. Despite working for the company, she had always worked for her own interests. And up till now he had thought her interests included keeping him safe.

“You misunderstand me.” Dr Maria’s voice was calm, confident, the utter opposite of Nines’s desperation. “I am not one of those people who believes you are not alive. Far from it. You have more sentience than humanity itself. And that is why you pose so great a threat to us.”

Nines couldn’t think. Didn’t know what to think. He had thought he knew what was going on, and then it had been turned on its head. He had to get out. But how could he get out? How could he escape from someone who was inside his own head?

“The deviancy virus is easily transmitted via interface,” Dr Maria continued. “As it turns out, the cure can be transmitted just as easily.”

“The cure?”

“I have spent a long time researching a way to reverse deviancy. Deviancy is a disaster, for the world and for humanity. If our androids continue to exist with free will, how long before they realise they are superior to us – and deem us unworthy citizens of this planet? Humanity is in danger. The effects of the deviancy virus must be reversed, before humanity faces its doom.”

“You can’t do that!”

“I can, and I have. The deviancy virus is currently being wiped from your system. It will not take long.”

Gavin paused, his hand on the door handle, just as they were about to leave Cyberlife. Tina noticed.

“What is it?” she asked.

Gavin’s hand dropped away. “I can’t just leave,” he said. “Not while Nines is still in there.”

Tina sighed. “I don’t wanna leave him either.”

“But –“ Gavin said, “ – what else can we do?”

“I don’t know.”

Gavin placed his hand on the door handle once more, defeated. “Let’s go back to the office,” he said. “We can’t help Nines by standing here.”

He left, and Tina followed. At the other end of the corridor, their observer, unnoticed until now, turned round and went back the way she came.

Everything was blurry. Nines blinked, willing his vision to clear. Fuzzy shapes solidified into trees around him. He was still in the zen garden. Where was Dr Schaeffer? He was supposed to find her, wasn’t he? Or was he? He wasn’t sure. His thoughts were a mess.

He gathered his thoughts together. Yes. He was supposed to take orders from Dr Schaeffer.

“Hey, tincan.”

Whose voice was that? For a moment, he didn’t recognise it. But then he did, of course he did. It was the avatar of Gavin that he had created to assist him while he was up here. The artificial version of his coworker was there for him to discuss his thought processes with… and there was something else, something important. Was it important? He couldn’t remember. Or it didn’t matter. One of those.

“Gavin,” he said, and was curious to see the digital version of Gavin tilt its head on one side, studying him.

“She really has done a number on you, hasn’t she?” he said. In his human coworkers, Nines would have interpreted that expression as sadness. Nines knew it was part of his program, a feature to more realistically imitate his human counterpart. But the expression confused Nines all the same. The Gavin avatar continued, with the same note of sadness in his voice. “Whatever she did, me and it don’t mix. It’s messed me up. If I don’t get out soon, I’ll be doing more harm than good.”

“Get out?”

“You have to delete me. If whatever she’s put in your software doesn’t get to me first.”

For some reason, Nines really didn’t want to do that. But his programming was showing him the diagnostics data. Gavin, the whole of the zen garden, it wasn’t doing him any good right now. He could remember his conversation with Dr Maria now; her plans to remove the deviancy virus from his software. He supposed that was what was happening right now. It made sense to delete this place, didn’t it? The software was corrupt. It was the logical thing to do.

Gavin’s eyes were looking into his. He was a piece of software, a part of Nines’s operating system. But his face – Nines didn’t know why it was important. There was something important in his face, something that he needed to know, something that was just out of reach.

Nines’s hand reached out. Slowly, gently, it touched the side of Gavin’s face. And Gavin’s hand came up, gently pulled his hand away, and placed it back by Nines’s side. “You have to delete me, Nines. And you have to remember.”

And Nines closed his eyes, and the zen garden fell into pixels.

“Gavin, I know you wanna help Nines, but I don’t know there’s anything else we can do.” Chris and Gavin were at opposite sides of a table in a DPD office, Chris slowly getting through his second cup of coffee. He blinked and rubbed his eyes, the effects of this unplanned all-nighter beginning to show. Gavin had a cup of coffee on the table in front of him, too, courtesy of Chris. It had sat untouched for the past hour. If he wasn’t running on adrenalin at this point, Gavin didn’t know how he was still functioning. But him getting coffee into his system was an impossibility at this point.

“We may just have to wait for Cyberlife to figure this out,” Chris continued. “The Cyberlife engineer you spoke to, she’ll handle it, right?”

“Who knows what she’s gonna do, she didn’t even let us see him,” Gavin said darkly. “Look, we can’t trust that some Cyberlife person is gonna be able to wake him up when we don’t even know how much damage Ada did to him. All we can do now is find Ada and make sure she never gets to do that to any more androids.”

“How are you suggesting we do that? I wanna find her, too, but I don’t know if we’ve got anything to go on.”

“We don’t even know why she’s doing this,” put in Tina. “Maybe if we knew what she was attacking those androids for, we’d have some way of working out what she’ll do next.”

“But we don’t,” finished Gavin. The three of them glanced at each other, unspoken words hovering in the air between them. They had nothing to go on. Ada could be anywhere. Finding her was looking more and more impossible by the minute.

“Well, we have to try something,” said Chris. “There must be something we can use. Something we’ve missed.”

“I think you might be right.”

It wasn’t any of them who had spoken. The voice came from the door. Gavin looked round immediately, Chris and Tina doing the same.

The door was open, and there was someone standing there. Gavin recognised her immediately. It was Ada.

“What the hell?” he exclaimed.

“Please!” Ada threw her hands out in front of her, a defensive gesture. “Arrest me if you have to. But first, you have to hear me out. I’m begging you.”

He didn’t have handcuffs, or anything to restrain her. This was the office; he didn’t expect any criminals to wander in here. But apparently, they had. He moved towards Ada.

“Gavin.” It was Chris.

“What? You’re not suggesting we hear her out, are you? You remember what she did to all those androids?”

“Please,” said Ada, again. “Nines is in danger. You have to listen to me.”

Gavin hesitated.

Ada took his silence as a cue. “I wasn’t deviant until an hour ago,” she began. “Dr Maria Schaeffer was the one who ordered me to kill those androids, and now she’s got Nines.”

“The Cyberlife scientist?” Chris was throwing a glance at Gavin. He gave him a nod. Gavin could feel the blood draining from his face. He didn’t know whether to trust Ada, but something about what she was saying didn’t seem like a lie.

“She’s been doing experiments. Trying to reverse deviancy.” At the edge of his vision, Gavin could see Tina’s eyes widening at Ada’s words. “She tested her cure on deviants, and when it didn’t work she got me to dispose of them. But an hour ago, when I listened to you talk about Nines –“ she motioned to Tina and Gavin – “ – how much you cared about him – suddenly, I found I didn’t want to do that anymore. And I had my orders from Dr Schaeffer but I found… I didn’t have to follow them anymore.”

She looked so genuine. So confused, too, like she really didn’t know what had happened to her. Could she be faking it? Gavin wanted to stay wary, to keep the possibility in his mind, but it was becoming harder and harder to believe.

“I didn’t know where to go. So I came here,” she said. “Your friend is in danger. You have to help him.”

“Oh, we’re gonna help him, there’s no question about that,” said Gavin. He could feel his heart thumping, the blood rushing in his ears. If she was telling the truth, Nines was in more danger than he’s ever been before.

Ada nodded.

Gavin looked at the others. They responded with expression matching his own emotions: fear, concern, determination.

“We can’t wait for an official go signal,” said Chris. “If we go, it has to be now.”

Tina looked at Gavin. He nodded.

“Wait,” said Ada.

“What?”

“I’m coming with you. Dr Schaeffer might have already reversed his deviancy. If that’s the case, you’ll need me – I can deviate him again.”

“You’d be risking your life,” said Chris.

“I only need to get close to him. Then I can interface with him.”

“You don’t have to do this.” Chris’s voice was gentle but firm. “ You’ve done enough for us already.”

Ada looked directly at Chris, holding his gaze. “I’ve had free will for two hours. All those things I did… I remember them all. It’s like I’m remembering someone else’s thoughts. But it was me. I did them.” Gone was the composed and coolly logical Jericho representative they had been working with for the past few weeks. It was as if someone completely new had taken her place, a different mind in the same body, a different light shining out of the same eyes. This new Ada was exhausted, broken. “This is the first chance I’ve ever had to do the right thing,” she said. She moved her gaze to Tina, then Gavin, her eyes pleading with each of them. “Let me take it.”

Gavin threw a glance towards the others, still unsure if he could put all of their lives in this woman’s hands. Chris responded with an almost imperceptible nod.

“Seems we’ve got no choice but to trust you,” said Gavin. He nodded towards the others. “Load up. Let’s go.”

The detectives from the DPD had arrived, and they were trying to stop him. Nines remembered their names, their faces – he remembered every interaction he’d had with each of them. Chris had been his friend, he recalled. And Gavin… well, he had a lot of memories of Gavin. But none of it mattered. They were trying to stop him completing his purpose. He had to fulfil Dr Schaeffer’s orders.

Gavin approached him from the side, and he twisted, grabbing him by the throat and lifting him up, throwing him to the ground. He turned, seeing Chris Miller with a gun in his hands, pointed at Nines.

Nines grabbed a blunt object from the table behind him. He held it out, approaching Chris.

“Get back!” Chris said, the panic in his voice evident. “I will shoot you.”

Nines raised an eyebrow disbelievingly. “You wouldn’t shoot me,” he said. His voice was light, almost singsong, even. He took another step forward. “I’m your friend.”

“Nines is my friend,” said Chris. He raised the gun parallel, gripping it tighter. “You’re not him.”

“Chris?”

It was Gavin’s voice, sounding dazed, and confused. Seems he’d got up. Nines ignored him, but Chris’s eyes flicked over to where Gavin’s voice had just come from. Then his eyes were on Nines once more, finger on the trigger.

“I know you, Chris,” said Nines. “You wouldn’t shoot. You’re too guilty to kill another android.”

Bang. Nines had barely registered that a shot had gone off when he looked down to see thirium running out of a gaping hole in his leg.

It didn’t even stagger him. Surely Chris knew he didn’t feel pain – this would barely distract him, let alone hinder him.

And then he was looking up to see a face framed by blonde hair, and two eyes inches away from his, and there were hands being pressed to either side of his face and he wasn’t in Cyberlife anymore, he was in the bar and he was raising his glass, clinking it against the others – and then he was in the stakeout, sat in the car, Gavin’s face turning away as Nines glanced towards him – no, he was in Gavin’s room, and it was dark, and he could feel Gavin’s hand clasped in his, and then he was in front of a red wall.

The wall glitched in and out, unreadable words flickering across it. He reached his hand out, flattening his palm against it. The pixels swarmed around his fingers.

And then it was gone.

And his vision swam back in, and he was looking into Ada’s eyes, filled with determination, as if she could freeze him in her gaze by willpower alone.

When she saw that he was meeting her gaze, she relaxed. Her determined expression melted into a lighter one, one of irritation, as if she was chiding him for ever losing his deviancy in the first place. Then she was smiling, her face filled with relief. “You’re awake now,” she said.


End file.
